Doors, walls and new pipes!

It's been a good couple of days. The plumber has been here and took out our big cast iron plumbing stack and replaced it (I believe with PVC or some such material). The bathroom is now all set for pipes and the inspector was here.

Our carpenter made the framing for the new linen closet (an extra bonus we got due to some "extra space" that needed to not be moved, as it's the reason we can open our bedroom door) and the new doorway for the bathroom. Then today we got doors! And walls! Yeay! The picture is from the hallway, the first door is the bathroom and the second in the distance is the new linen closet. It's exciting to actually have something put IN instead of demolished.

Tomorrow our new tub comes- which was upgraded to air jets (instead of water jets) by our resourceful contractor finding an "overstock" deal. Wohoo! Originially we weren't getting a jetted tub at all, we just wanted a 6 foot tub instead of 5 foot, but it turns out those don't exist except in special order, and because of a typo on a website, our poor contractor thought he had one all lined up for us! So he spent all day yesterday correcting the situation and we decided to go jetted, which I'm quite happy about.

Let there be lights and a post

Erik here. Lana is incapacitated by some stomach flu :(
Got some more exciting things in remodel land:

















We now have some lights in the kitchen. Very nice. The bathroom door is framed out, which makes the room start feeling very real. The post is installed at the end of the half wall and the half wall is now a few inches shorter and made nice and neat. Also we have the studs framed out for the medicine cabinets.


We have some more plumbing to do, and then we should be just about ready for drywall. How exciting :)

Who knew plumbing could be so pretty?

The plumber was here today running a new cold water line all the way to the kitchen(apparently the hot water line had been fixed previously, but the cold water was still "backwards"), and new hot and cold water from the kitchen to the bath (we had some rotting issues). Who knew plumbing came in such pretty colors these days. Our gas line is yellow, the cold water is blue, and the hot water, red. Much easier to decode that metal pipes when you're looking under your sink. The carpenter also put up new studs in the wall behind the tub because when he removed the tub he saw the old studs were all rotted... lovely! You can see where a window used to be in the picture of the new studs- that was the outside wall before the addition. He also put up braces to push up our sagging doorway between the kitchen and family room (whoever put this addition on was wacko), and once leveled out, we're putting in a post from the halfwall to keep it reinforced in the future. This was a cheaper and easier option than a joist in the wall above the opening, plus I think it will look nice.

"Tell me about it, Stud"

We have new walls framed! It's very exciting to see the new space lined out. The carpenter also jackhammered the floor to make space for moving the plumbing (slab ranches are fun, aren't they?). The plumber was here getting started, but it turns out the plumbing under our kitchen sink is a little wacky and certainly not going to hold up to new code, so it looks like a new water line is in our future, but we're hashing out the details (this wasn't in the original plan). The red rubber hose in the picture is what is currently giving us hot water in the working bathroom. We also found some lovely flatware mixed in with the plumbing- yard sale anyone?

Grout, grout and grout?

I went to buy grout today and did not expect to have nearly as many choices there as in the tile aisle! I actually found a really helpful sales person (shocking!) who had a handy little sample board to help me decide on colors- who knew I'd have a different color grout for each of the different tiles!
I realized I hadn't posted pictures of our bath tile yet. I tried to get the colors right, but it's really difficult. The bigger tile is the bath floor (it's a textured beige and grey tile) and the smaller is the tub surround (which is white with grey marbling that didn't really show in the pictures). We're going with a mostly white and grey theme in the bathroom, but we wanted to warm the tones up a bit with the floor tile, which brings in some warmer, soft beige. Hopefully it will all work together!

Weekend Update

We haven't had pics to post the last couple days because Thurs and Fri our carpenter was out sick with a stomach bug. Our contractor is going to double up on staff this week to get us back on schedule. Unfortunately, we had a couple little disturbances to our already disturbed way of living this week. One is that our "working" bathroom is still without power. It wasn't just that the circuit was off, it's that something got cut during demo and remains undone. The carpenter was unaware of this. I told our contractor, and the electrician is coming on Monday. Since last week, we've just had a floor lamp plugged in from the family room as our light. The other is that the dryer and stove were hooked up to the same gas line, and they had to shut off the gas to unhook the stove. Luckily, we were only without a dryer for one day, as they capped the line after it gets to the dryer. We were still perplexed for a while as to why the dryer wasn't getting hot, but Erik figured out the shut-off was still closed, and now it works!
The two days of "rest" at the end of last week helped me re-organize things after realizing I was going to lose my mind trying to live the way I started out at the beginning of the week. Maybe some of these ideas will help anyone else who is going to do home improvement with a toddler (brave souls).
First thing was dust control- the dust continues to settle all over the house after work days and I could not keep washing all Keagan's toys before I let him touch anything! So now, I have pared down his toys so that what is left fits into two Space Bags. That way, during the day, they are sealed up in the bags (cupboards aren't enough- the dust gets INSIDE) and then they are still clean at the end of the day. All non-essentials are out of the TV room and Family Room so that a simple Swiffering of the floor, and wiping down of surfaces will do at the end of the day. The living room got a thorough cleaning this weekend, but it is not one of the high priority rooms for us, so it's daily cleaning will be less necessary.
Second thing was napping Keagan during the day- I was going crazy packing up everything in his crib every morning and making sure I had everything I'd need to put him down somewhere else. I ended up leaving his lovey at two people's houses this week! I tried leaving everything at my parents' house, but they don't have a crib and he hates the pack n play, so that didn't work. Luckily, lots of my mommy friends here in Maynard have offered their cribs for us to use when their kids are in daycare (how does anyone survive without such a great network of loved ones?). So the new plan is this: I went out and bought doubles of everything I need during the day (crib toy, blankie, etc), which is all packed in a duffle bag in my car. That way, where ever we end up, I can put him down for a nap.
Hopefully this coming week will go a little more smoothly... There is one thing that is working out very well for us all, and that is Willow going to Doggie Daycare. It's helpful not to have to worry about him in the house with the noise and the dust, and he comes home tired and contented. At least the dog is getting a good deal out of this!

Studs down

Well, now the middle of my house is just a big hole. Our lead carpenter was here yesterday and took down the studs between the kitchen and bathroom, took down the ceiling and took out the toilet and vanity. There also used to be a door a little left of the current doorway to the bathroom... interesting. They found a wire that had a staple going through it and started sparking... fun! That circuit unfortunately also controls our WORKING bathroom and had to stay off last night. They will be fixing the sparking wire issue today so we can turn it back on. Erik came home last night and said "Wow, they did a lot today." and I said " 'They'? It was just Tom... by himself..." and Erik said "Oh... he's better at this than I am." That's a good thing, sweetie ;)